Modern Indian Dance

Dancing is the natural expression of human feelings. It is a rhythmic movement of body in pace with the music accompanied. It is a sport and art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting. Many religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, etc use dance postures in the shrines, which itself depicts the importance of dance in worship.

Dance may also be regarded as a form of nonverbal communication between humans, and is also performed by other animals (bee dance, patterns of behaviour such as a mating dance). Gymnastics, figure skating and synchronized swimming are sports dance disciplines, while martial arts kata are often compared to dances. Motion in inanimate objects may also be described as dances (the leaves danced in the wind), and certain musical forms or genres.

Modern Dance in India has a relatively short history. Since the perception of 'modern' or 'contemporary' can vary from dancer to dancer, this dance form cannot be defined as easily as the classical dance styles of India. It is also not codified in a detailed manner, as are the classical styles. Today, the indian classical dance has undergone a lot of changes over the centuries. Most of the contemporary dancers use the formal classical Indian dance technique to stage ballets presenting various themes such as nationalism, unity of religions, the sanctity of the environment, education system literacy, agriculture etc.

After the explosion of modern dance in the early 20th century, the 1960s saw the growth of postmodernism. Postmodernism veered towards simplicity, the beauty of small things, the beauty of untrained bodies, and unsophisticated movement. The famous 'No' manifesto rejecting all costumes, stories and outer trappings in favour of raw and unpolished movement was perhaps the extreme of this wave of thinking. Unfortunately lack of costumes, stories and outer trappings do not make a good dance show, and it was not long before sets, décor and shock value re-entered the vocabulary of modern choreographers.

By the 1980s dance had come full circle and modern dance (or, by this time, 'contemporary dance') was clearly still a highly technical and political vehicle for many practitioners. Existing alongside classical ballet, the two art-forms were by now living peacefully next door to one another with little of the rivalry and antipathy of previous eras. In a cleverly designed comment on this ongoing rivalry the brilliant collaboration of Twyla Tharp (one of the 20th Century's cutting edge Dance avant-gardist/contemporary) and Ballet dance was ultimately achieved. The present time sees us still in the very competitive artistic atmosphere where choreographers compete to produce the most shocking work, however, there are still glimpses of beauty to be had, and much incredible dancing in an age where dance technique has progressed further in expertise, strength and flexibility than ever before in history.

At the same time, mass culture experienced expansion of street dance. In 1974, famous group Jackson 5 performed on television a dance called Robot (choreographed by postmodern artist Michael Jackson). This event, and later Soul Train performances by black dancers ignited street culture revolution, which later formed break dancing rocks dance. Hip-hop dance were also started.